German clinic becomes long-term COVID rehab hub

A clinic on the Baltic coast has become a major rehabilitation center for COVID-19 patients from across Germany, treating hundreds of people over the past year. Among them is Simone Ravera, a 50-year-old nurse who suddenly found symptoms such as severe fatigue and "brain fog" return, four months after becoming infected with the virus.

Ravera is one of many suffering what has been called long-term COVID-19, or 'long COVID'. She's slowly finding her feet again after being struck down with a coronavirus infection at work last autumn, seemingly recovering and then relapsing. Close to despair, she found a clinic that specialized in treating people with long COVID symptoms.

Located in Heiligendamm, a north German spa resort, the Median Rehabilitation Clinic specialises in helping people with lung diseases such as asthma, chronic bronchitis and cancer. Over the past year it has become a major rehabilitation centre for COVID-19 patients, treating some 600 people from across the country, according to its medical director Dr. Joerdis Frommhold.

Frommhold says she is most concerned about a group of patients who experience mild to medium COVID, recover, and then fall ill again some months later. Most are aged between 18 to 50 and have no pre-existing conditions. After recovering from a bout of COVID-19, these patients suddenly find themselves short of breath, depressed and struggling to concentrate, said Frommhold.

Some suffer symptoms resembling those of dementia. One former dialysis nurse found her kitchen flooded because she'd forgotten to turn off the tap. It is unclear how many people suffer from long COVID, partly because the condition isn't clearly defined yet. Scientists are still trying to understand the cause. Some believe the virus may be leaving its mark on tissue and organs throughout the body - even in people who had a fairly mild bout of COVID-19.

Others suggest it could be the result of an errant immune response, a theory that has also been put forward for conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome. Given the large number of people worldwide who have been infected with the disease - more than 140 million according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University - even a small percentage of long-COVID sufferers means a significant number of people are affected. Heike Risch, 51, got COVID-19 from a child at the kindergarten where she worked in the eastern city of Cottbus. After being discharged from hospital, she was hardly able to walk unaided. "I felt like I'd aged 30 years in a short period of time," she said.

At the clinic, Risch was unable to balance a table tennis ball on a racket and walk backwards. She still can't read a clock properly. As for Simone Ravera, she says she has come a long way thanks to the therapy in Heiligendamm and feels lucky to have support from friends and family. But she doubts she'll go back to working as a hospital nurse. "You don't know when you'll be well again," she said. Instead, Ravera is considering using what she learned in rehab to help others who are learning to breathe properly again after COVID. "It's a bit of a journey into the unknown, I have to admit," she said.